them. He leaves it to his son Chimham to go and taste the new life, to witness the wonderful magnificence of Solomon (1 Kings ii. 7), to become afterwards as famous as his father for the Eastern virtue of hospitality, the founder of a caravanserai for pilgrims, on the road between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, which continued to bear his name, even down to the very close of the monarchy (Jer. xli. 17). So the king and the old chief parted with mutual tokens of respect. The passage over the Jordan was completed. The tribe of Judah received back their king at Gilgal. Here, for us, the history ends. It has taught its own lessons. As an actual record of the past it has its own interest. But here, as in so many other instances, if we are to measure rightly the magnitude of that interest, we must ask ourselves what would have been the probable consequences if it had ended otherwise than it did? Only by picturing to ourselves what might have been the state of Europe had Charles Martel failed to stem the northward progress of the Saracenic hosts; what might have been the condition of England had there been no storm or tempest to scatter the ships of Philip of Spain, can we take a true estimate of all that was involved in the issue of the battle of Tours, in the fate of the Invincible Armada. And here, too, the question, what would have been the history of Israel if the revolt of Absalom had been successful? forces itself upon us, and (difficult as it is to construct any history on an hypothesis) demands an answer. (1) First, then, there would have been all the difference between a reign like that of Solomon, opening, at least, with the love of truth, wisdom, right; a time of culture, commerce, and intellectual progress, and one beginning with violence, and licence, and parricidal war. The wisdom of Solomon, the glory of Solomon, all the thoughts that grew out of that wisdom and glory would have been unknown to us. (2) The position of the priesthood must have become in every way a false one. Either Zadok and Abiathar, and their houses, must have continued to play out in sad reality the part which they had begun in subtle policy, and so the whole order would have been degraded into the mere tools of a despotic licence; or else, if true to their allegiance, they must have risen in rebellion, taking with them the sacred Ark, and so, once again, leaving a deserted sanctuary, compelling Absalom to do as afterwards Jeroboam did, and to fill up their places with "the lowest of the people." In either case, the religious framework of the whole polity would have been shaken. The priesthood would have become, more rapidly than it did, contemptible and base. The rebellion, from its very commencement an anti-sacerdotal movement, would have brought back the lawlessness of the time of the Judges. (3) More fatal still would have been the influence of Absalom's success upon the order of the prophets. They, at any rate, must have remained faithful to the king whom the great founder of their school had solemnly anointed, who found in Nathan and Gad his chosen advisers, submitting at their hands even to rebuke and shame. They would not have paid their homage to one who had broken the great laws of God. A wide schism between the monarchy and the prophetic order at that early period, would have been fatal to both. The schools of the prophets suppressed, their disciples scattered, the training in minstrelsy and song ceasing for lack of teachers; this, or hardly less than this, would have followed from that antagonism. In that case, we might have known little or nothing of the history of Israel. A few fragments of the wondrous story and ancient laws that gathered round the name of Moses, a few songs bearing the name of David, might have escaped the wear and tear of time, but we should have had an Old Testament (if an Old Testament had in that case been possible) without the Prophets, without the Books of Solomon, without a History of the Monarchy of Judah. VII. THE EARTHQUAKE IN THE DAYS OF UZZIAH, KING OF JUDAH. ALESTINE, it is well known, lies almost in the centre of one great volcanic region of the earth's surface, that, namely, which includes the basin of the Mediterranean and the provinces of Western or Central Asia. Traces of that volcanic action are found in every direction. The black basaltic rock of the Haurân, the hot springs of Tiberias and Emmaus and Gadara, the naphtha fountains near the Dead Sea, the dykes of porphyry and other volcanic rocks that force their way through the limestone, the many caves in the limestone rock themselves, all these show that we are treading on ground where the forces of the hidden fires of earth have been in times past in active operation. We are, that is, in a zone of earthquakes.* Of some of these earthquakes, tremendous in their phænomena and the extent of the desolation caused by them, we have full details, in earlier and even in *Compare Ritter's "Geography_of Palestine,” vol. ii. pp. 242-244 (English translation); Dr. Pusey's note on Amos iv. ÎÏ; and Tristram's "Land of Israel," pp. 457, 584. contemporary history. The Jewish writer, Josephus, speaks of one which occurred B.C. 31 as having destroyed many villages, and countless flocks and herds, and human lives, which he estimates (with somewhat, perhaps, of Oriental vagueness as to statistics) now at ten, and now at thirty thousand.* Herod and his army, who were then carrying on war against the Arabs, were only saved by their being encamped in tents, and so free from the perils of falling houses. As it was, he had to combat the panic and depression which it spread through his troops, and, with something of a sceptical epicureanism, to assure them that these natural phænomena were not signs of greater evils yet to come, but were calamities by themselves, having no connection with any others that followed or preceded them. Within the last thirty years again the shocks of an earthquake were felt over the whole of Syria, in Beirout, Damascus, Cyprus; Safed was almost utterly destroyed; Tiberias was left little better than a heap of ruins, and one-third of the population perished, to the number of a thousand. Rivers forsook their beds and left them dry for hours. The hot springs that flow into the Sea of Tiberias were largely swollen in volume, and the level of the lake raised.† One such convulsion has left its impress on the history of the kingdom of Judah. The first verse of the prophecy of Amos (perhaps from his own pen, perhaps prefixed by some early compiler) tells us of the "words which he saw concerning Israel, in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah, and in the days of * Ant., xv. 5, § 2; Bell. Jud., i. 19, § 3. |